I was fixated with dead animals: Brand

London: British comedian Russell Brand, labelled the sexiest vegetarian by PETA, says he was fixated with death and dead animals in the past.

Brand shared his past with Strauss for the latter`s new book "Everyone Loves You When You Are Dead", reports a website.

"I was fixated with dead animals and death. The driving ideology behind what I was doing was pretty safe, right? And I felt that people were spellbound, like they`d been hypnotized, and I had to wake them up.

"So I would do things to wake them up. Like, I`d have a load of dead rats or dead chicks, like baby birds, on stage," Brand told Strauss.

"And I`d smash them up with a hammer and then throw them into the audience and go, `Why are you disgusted? I`ve just rearranged their atoms. They`re dead already. Nothing`s happened. You`re being shocked by nothing,`" he added.

Neil believes there were two reasons for Brand`s bizarre behaviour - drugs and his desire for fame.

"He was clearly on drugs when he smashed the animals on stage. Also, the whole show was about shock value, because at the time he was hungry for attention because he had just started out," he said.

"He thought this was art, it was important to him - this was him trying to be a rock star, trying to make a point about what is really right from wrong since the animals were dead before he `killed` them. Funnily enough, since then PETA has embraced him and called him the sexiest vegetarian," he added.